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Femtosecond laser system
The femtosecond lasers are currently housed in the Joyce M. Kuok Laser Physics and Photonic Laboratory. This laboratory has a Coherent Mira 900 Ti:saphire laser which is tunable from ~700 nm to 1000 nm producing ~100 fs (1 fs = 10-15 s) laser pulses and pulse energy ~3 nJ at 76 MHz repetition rate. For measurements such as in nonlinear optics experiments required high pulse energy, this low pulse energy output from the Mira 900 can be amplified using the Quantronic Regenerative Ti:sapphire Laser Amplifier. This regenerative amplifier is able to produce amplified laser pulses at ~0.5 mJ/pulse of ~150 fs pulse duration. Furthermore, a homemade tilted pulse-front ultraviolet pumped optical parametric amplifier (OPA) can produce tunable femtosecond pulses from UV (with frequency doubling) to near-infrared. For probing extremely fast processes, we have developed a chirp mirror compressed noncollinearly phased-matched OPA to generate 10 fs laser pulses. Therefore, the Joyce Kuok Laser Physics and Photonic Laboratory is capable of generating tunable femtosecond (10 fs to 150 fs) laser pulses from ultraviolet to near infrared.
 
Summary of the Joyce Kuok Laser Physics and Photonic Laboratory femtosecond laser capabilities:
  • Coherent Mira 900 Ti:saphire laser. pulse width : 100 fs. tunable range : 700 nm-1000 nm. repetition rate : 76 MHz.
  • Quantronic Regenerative Ti:sapphire Laser Amplifier. pulse width : 150 fs. tunable range : 800 nm. repetition rate : 1 kHz.
  • UV pumped OPA. pulse width : 150 fs. tunable range : 250 nm - 2000 nm. repetition rate : 1 kHz.
  • Noncollinear OPA. pulse width : 10 fs. tunable range : 510 nm- 650 nm. repetition rate : 1 kHz.

 

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS